18,000 sign petition for Apple to fix Macbook GPU fault

How the screen of a Macbook affected by the alleged GPU issue appears. Image via action.mbp2011.com

More than 18,000 people have signed an online petition calling on consumer tech giant Apple to replace its early-2011 Macbooks because alleged faulty manufacturing is causing GPUs to fail.

The campaign, started on Reddit, has gathered considerable steam, with Macbook users claiming their screens are showing serious glitches, as well as blue screen errors.

According to those familiar with the error, this is most likely related to the degradation of the soldering or thermal paste used in the manufacturing process.

However, Apple’s response, or lack thereof, has angered its community of usually loyal fans, so much so that a number of websites have sprung up not just to petition Apple to replace the laptops, but to raise awareness of the issue.

While Apple had previously agreed to replace a small amount of logic boards related to the issue, the issue has persisted, which would show another more serious problem remains.

On Apple’s forums alone, the thread dedicated to the problem started by Apple user abelliveau as early as February 2013, has reached more than 600 pages in length and is amassing more than 9,000 comments and 1.6m page views.

The Twitter hashtag for the problem, #mbp2011, has trended on the microblogging site numerous times. Apple had only last August issued a rather discreet replacement programme for its 27-inch iMacs due to an error in the AMD graphics cards that were included in them, and which were also produced around the same time as the Macbooks.

However, Apple might not be able to hold out for much longer, as sooner or later the company will have to respond to a class-action lawsuit filed by a Washington, DC, law firm over the issue.